


Late Night Coffee

by yourmooseyfate



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Listen I need more of Five and Vanya being good siblings to each other, Post-Canon, Vanya and Five, sorry if you hate it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 04:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17974688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourmooseyfate/pseuds/yourmooseyfate
Summary: Five finds Vanya struggling with guilt over everything that she's done.





	Late Night Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> So, there's a shot of the grounds in episode 2 that shows a dilapidated observatory and it just stuck in my head so I decided to use it. 
> 
> Sorry if they seem out of character, but I had to write this because it's been bouncing around in my head for a week. I feel like a lot of people have been writing like she would immediately start trying to figure out using her powers, but I just thought about how scared she was of her powers before she caused the end of the world, and thought, maybe after everything that fear would increase tenfold. 
> 
> Also, I suck at titles and this has no beta. Anywho, here it is!

Things had been chaotic when they returned to the past. Five had immediately passed out –face pale like wax, and covered with a thin sheen of sweat. The rest of them, reeling from the spinning revolting sensation of being shoved through time, scrambled to put themselves together enough to figure out when and where they were.

 

Surprisingly, it was Klaus who made a plan and gave them simple easy-to-follow instructions to get them where they needed to be. After two days of rest in a shitty motel on the edge of town, Five woke up. He was shaky, a bit less intensity in his biting remarks, but otherwise fine.

 

Vanya still hadn’t woken up.

 

They collectively decided to go back to the Hargreeve’s mansion. As much as each of them hated it, it was the only place that they could all stay inconspicuous and not have to pay money every time they wanted to sleep. Plus, they didn’t know what was wrong with Vanya and they thought that maybe Mom could figure it out.

 

Mom (after significant confusion as to how Vanya had come to be in such a condition, which all of them lied about) had done some tests, told them that Vanya’s brain activity was normal and she had no idea why she hadn’t woken up. They put her in her own bed, though Grace had filled it with hospital equipment and became a sort of full time nurse checking in on her.

 

Luther had tried to form a watch, which had of course created a huge argument between all of the siblings. Finally, they decided that Allison and Five would take turns checking in on her, as they were the least likely to upset her if she woke up.

 

Allison spent any time in Vanya’s room talking, now that she had her voice back. Apologies were made, and unheard. She read to her sister, and told her stories of her niece Claire. She cried a little, but mostly she worried.

 

Five didn’t say much at all. Mostly he paced back in forth across her floor. He barely looked at her while she slept. His stomach twisted in guilt every time that he looked over at her. He’d done a shitty job of taking care of his family and stopping the apocalypse. Had he damaged her beyond repair by pulling her to the past? Had bringing all of his siblings been too much for him to protect them all from the vacuum of time?

 

They didn’t sit with her 24/7 but spent a few hours around midmorning, and a few in the afternoon, and a few scattered hours in the night when they couldn’t sleep. Five didn’t say anything to his brothers, who suddenly found any excuse to linger around her room, though they didn’t go in. Luther frustrated him the most, because though he knew that Klaus and Diego were worried for Vanya, it seemed that Luther was more worried about how to contain her when she woke up. Five could tell that everything was going to be an uphill battle with Luther once she did…if she did.

 

She was out for a week, before finally making her appearance over breakfast. Five was glaring into his coffee, idly trying to hear the argument taking place between Luther and Allison on the balcony that clearly pertained to Vanya, most of their arguments did lately. He was having trouble eavesdropping however, as Diego and Klaus were arguing over something trivial.

 

Vanya made her way into the kitchen from a side door, looking exhausted but otherwise alive and well. She didn’t say a word as she entered, simply slipped in quietly and made herself a cup of coffee. Five resisted the urge to say anything to her. He didn’t want to call attention to her yet, as the other siblings hadn’t noticed her walking in. She was probably still trying to process everything.

 

“Oh, Vanya dear! You’re finally awake!” Grace exclaimed excitedly as she turned to place more pancakes on the kitchen table.

 

“Vanya!” Allison bolted over to her, pulling her into a massive hug. “You’re awake!”

 

Vanya bristled in surprise, a conflicted look in her eyes. “It’s only 8 o’clock, I didn’t sleep that late.”

 

Everyone paused, looking around the room. She seemed to be giving them the same disbelieving stare that they were giving her. Luther, who had hurried in after Allison in a semi-panicked rush, took a confused seat next to Diego.

 

“Vanya, are you okay?” Allison asked worriedly.

 

“I’m fine, did something happen?” Vanya said, as though they were the ones acting strangely.

 

“You don’t remember?” Klaus asked softly.

 

The rest of them looked around again, saying nothing. Had she truly forgotten? Was 8 in the morning really a good time to remind someone that they ended the world a week ago –or technically that they _would_ end the world in the future?

 

“You were caught in the crossfires of a robbery.” Grace explained calmly, “Luckily, your brothers and sister were there to protect you. The shock however, seems to have really gotten to you. You slept for quite a while.”

 

Five clenched his jaw in frustration. This was the lie that they had told their Mom. It probably wasn’t a great time to drop the moon bomb on Vanya, as she had just woken up, but he didn’t like the idea of lying to her either.

 

“Oh, I don’t even remember.” Vanya said, her voice strained. Five wasn’t sure, but she seemed kind of off. Maybe she was still disoriented from the time travel? “How long was I out for?”

 

“A week.” Grace told her calmly. “Have a seat and eat some pancakes! You must be hungry.”

 

Vanya dropped into the nearest chair on the opposite side of the table from where all of her siblings were seated, an unreadable expression on her face. Mom placed a plate of fresh pancakes on the table in front of her, and Vanya took a hesitant sip of her coffee.

 

“A week?” She sounded a bit small. “Wow, I couldn’t even handle being around a small robbery? I really am a liability aren’t I?”

 

Her family shuffled uncomfortably in their seats. They wanted to argue with her, but didn’t know how without either directly lying to her, or spilling the beans and ruining her morning. She would probably remember soon enough, right?

 

She watched them squirm for a moment, and her shoulders hunched inward a little more. They all looked down guiltily.

 

“Mom, do you have my medicine?” She asked in a subdued voice, taking a small sip of her coffee. Their heads snapped back up, and they all stared wide-eyed in her direction.

 

“Of course, dear!” Mom said, pulling the pills out of a drawer and handing them over to Vanya.

 

The discomfort in the air was palpable. None of them knew what to say. Should they stop her? Five had intended to let her go medicine free if she wanted too, while they all helped her get control of her powers. But maybe it would be better to tell her all of it again while she had the safety blanket of her medicine?

 

She swallowed the pill before any of them could think of anything to say.

  
Another week passed, and she still seemed completely in the dark about what had happened. They held a few small meetings, trying to figure out the best time and way to tell her, or if they should wait for her to remember on her own. Luther felt that they shouldn’t tell her at all, but the rest of them knew that it was a bad idea. It would just become a way to repeat the future.

 

Five would never admit it out loud, but he was worried for his sister. She seemed off still. She’d always been a little withdrawn from her siblings, but she’d usually made an effort to spend some time with them, especially Five. Now however, she seemed to be avoiding all of them, and spent most of her time in her room or with Mom. It was made more obvious by the fact that they were all actively seeking out her company. What really got under Five’s skin though, was that she seemed to be avoiding him even more than the rest. Any time he was in the room, she found an excuse to leave.

 

She had only practiced her violin twice since waking up. When Diego asked about it, she said that she was tired and that the robbery must have really shaken her up. Five wondered if perhaps she was still feeling the physical ramifications from everything that had happened, and her body remembered even though her mind hadn’t caught up yet?

 

Five felt selfish. He wanted for her to remember, so that he could talk to her about it. He also didn’t want her to remember, because she would be devastated.

 

He was having trouble sleeping, and was solving equations on his wall to try and give his brain other things to think about. He’d been staring at the same equation for a full minute before deciding to take a walk.

 

He popped into the hallway, glancing around to see if any of his siblings were around. He looked towards Vanya’s room, but felt that she didn’t want to see him. Instead, he made his way downstairs and poured himself a glass of scotch before making his way into the courtyard outside. He meandered towards the rooftop courtyard through the chilly air, pretending like he didn’t know where he was going to end up.

 

By the time he was standing outside the observatory, he had finished his drink. He sighed a deep sigh. He was such hopeless old sap. He set the drink on a small ledge outside the building and looked up at the building.

 

He and Vanya used to sneak out to the observatory when he was working on particularly tricky science projects, or when she wanted somewhere to practice that had good acoustics but wouldn’t let the sound of whatever difficult song she was struggling through to make it’s way to her father or the rest of her siblings. It’s where they had forged their friendship, and where they would spend many evenings eating smuggled snacks and talking about books or science or music –whatever struck their fantasy. It’s where Five had made a promise that he hadn’t kept.

 

It looked run down, not that it had been a beautiful shining structure to begin with. Their father never seemed to go there when they were children, begging the question of why it was on the property to begin with. It received little to no maintenance because of it. Five had murdered his fair share of spiders for his sister when they were younger --though he’d told her that he released them into the wild so that she wouldn’t cry about it. Now it looked like it could come crashing down any minute.

 

 

He placed a hand on the outside of the metal detailing, deep in thought. If he hadn’t, he may not have felt the slightest shudder in the structure. Was it coming down simply because he’d nudged it? After a momentary pause, the structure shuddered again, and Five’s stomach sank.

 

Vanya.

 

Five didn’t like to jump long distances with his powers, it wore him out faster. In fact, he typically took the long way when traveling, and then used his powers short range to fight or maneuver around the area that he ended up in. He had however, developed a certain distain for using doors.

 

He blinked into the front of the building. It was even worse inside. The floor was cracked and weeds were growing through it. Some plants had even made their way through cracks near the ceiling.

 

His stomach sank even further. On the far side of the room, knees curled up to her shoulders, was Vanya. She was crying as silently as she could, small sobs escaping here and there. Her arms were wrapped around her shins, her hands clenched in tight fists. She was shaking.

 

He hesitated for a moment. He wasn’t good at emotional stuff, never had been. Hadn’t Delores told him a million times that he was horrible at this sort of thing? Luckily, Delores typically didn’t need emotional comfort. But this was Vanya.

 

“Vanya?” He asked softly, not wanting to scare her.

 

She looked at him with so much guilt in her eyes, that he was positive in that moment that she had been lying about losing her memory. He could have kicked himself. She’d been acting weird, why had he believed her?

 

“Stay away from me.” She whimpered, voice broken. “I’m too emotional right now, I might h-hurt you.”

 

Five scoffed, unable to keep his own personality from existing. He knew that she could probably murder him in 3 seconds, but she didn’t seem to want to, so he took that to mean that she wouldn’t. “Yeah right, I can teleport remember?”

 

He approached her before she could warn him off again, dropping into a squat in front of her. She curled into herself a bit tighter, and Five clenched his jaw.

 

“Vanya,” he started, uncertain of what to say.

 

“I’m so sorry,” She answered, looking into his eyes with desperation. “I’m –I’m s-sorry!” Her sobs burst forward, renewed in strength.

 

“It’s okay,” Five said. He felt weird, because if anyone outside of one of his siblings had been the cause of the apocalypse it most definitely would not be okay. Except, it had been Vanya, and she had been not quite herself. “You didn’t mean to do it.”

 

“But it’s all my fault,” she sobbed. “Everything is my fault, Five. I’m s-so sorry!” She trailed off into uncontrollable sobs, and the building shuddered. She pulled herself, if possible, into an even tighter ball, and Five’s gaze was pulled to her hands.

 

Her nails had cut into her palms, drawing blood. She was desperately trying to keep her powers inside.

 

Surprising himself a little, Five reached out and gingerly took one of her hands. She didn’t stop him, though a bit of resistance was in her arm. He uncurled her hand palm up, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and began to wipe away some of the blood on her hand.

 

“I don’t think that you get to take all of the blame in this.” He said curtly, though his hands were gentle. Vanya grabbed his wrist, not with force but with determination.

 

“Five, I…I _ruined_ your childhood. I ruined your life.” She gasped out. “I destroyed everything and you had to live off of cockroaches and kill people and I –I’m so sorry.” She took a shuddering breath.

 

Five blinked at her, and let himself fall from his squat into a proper sitting position on the ground. This was why she had been avoiding him, because she felt more guilty for ruining his life than for ending the world. He couldn’t believe this. If he hadn’t been so touched, he would be angry at her. His voice came out a bit harsher than he meant when he finally spoke.

 

“That’s stupid.” He snapped.

 

Vanya’s eyebrows came together in confusion, but the tears continued to stream down her cheeks. She didn’t seem to know what to say to that, and Five realized that he should probably elaborate.

 

“Vanya, you didn’t ruin my life.” He said, extricating his wrist from her hand, and taking it in his. “I am the one who got too big for his britches and decided to jump through time. You told me to wait, dad told me to wait, but I did it anyway. I made a choice and I went forward through time. I chose to join the commission to get back here, because I wanted to save my family.”

 

“But if I had –hadn’t caused it you wou-“ Vanya started, though she was holding his hand like it was her last life line. He cut her off.

 

“Time is weird, Vanya. There’s no way to know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t caused it.” She was staring at him, tears still making their silent way down her cheeks. “Listen, I’m not going to sugar coat it for you. Ending the world is bad. It’s definitely at the top of the list of stupid mistakes the Hargreeve’s children have made, but it was a mistake. We are all full of them. I know you, Vanya. You don’t have to apologize to me. I’ve _never_ blamed you for what happened to me.”

 

“But, I…” she trailed off, unsure of what to say.

 

“Look, if you’re so concerned about it,” He continued with a shrug, changing tactics. “master your powers so that we can keep it from happening again.”

 

“I don’t…I don’t want to use my powers again.” She told him, her voice even softer. The tears seemed to have stopped for now, but she could start again at any second. “What if, what if I hurt one of you again, like I hurt Allison?”

 

Five typically tried to forget how much older he was compared to his siblings, unless he was lording it over them. He wasn’t exactly the most functional 58 year old in the world. Moments like these however, made him feel the full exhaustion of his age. It was like dealing with teenagers sometimes.

 

“Vanya, it’s not all or nothing. It’s not, destroy the moon or never use your powers again. You can learn to use your powers, so that you don’t accidentally hurt people when you get overwhelmed.”

 

“I can’t.” She shuddered, clenching the hand that was holding his even tighter. “I tried to learn to use them, and then they got out of control.”

 

Five sighed. “How long did you practice mastering them before you gave up? 2 days?” He asked, knowing he sounded old. “It took me years to get really comfortable using my powers regularly. And I still struggle with aspects. Please refer to me being stuck in the future for 45 years.”

 

Vanya gave him a deadpan look. He felt that it was an improvement from the tears. “Did you blow up the moon and end life on Earth during that time, Five?”

 

“I can’t say that I did.” He gave her a sly smile, knowing she was probably feeling little better if she could say it all in one sentence with a little bit of sarcasm mixed in. “I’m not saying I’m going to make you, Vanya. I won’t make you do anything –making decisions for you is what got all of us into this mess in the first place.”

 

Vanya flinched at his last statement, but said nothing.

 

“If you don’t want to use your powers again, and you want to keep taking that medicine, feel free. Just know, that it’s probably more dangerous to ignore your powers and try to keep them locked away. Look at you now. You’re medicated, and alone, and still struggling to keep them in. It makes you more vulnerable to be out of control again. It would probably be smarter to master them, and then if you don’t want to use them after that don’t. At least you’d have a good grasp on them if you needed them, or if someone else like Harold Jenkins tried to manipulate you.”

 

Vanya nodded slowly, taking in his words. Five always liked that about her, even when they were children. She typically listened to everything a person said, and then mulled it over before responding. She was always slow to answer during difficult conversations, which had irritated her siblings to no end, but he’d always appreciated her effort to hear people out and think through what they were saying to her.

 

“But what if-“ she started slowly, but Five wasn’t having it.

 

“Nope.” He interrupted. “No what ifs. You have a time traveling brother, remember?”

 

She gave a small, uncertain smile and released some of the tension that she was holding.

 

“Like I said, you can do whatever you want. If you don’t want to use your powers yet, or ever, that’s fine. If you do want to train, we’ll all help you. I’ll be here for you either way.”

 

“Promise?” She asked, her voice breaking at the end with more unshed tears.

 

Five clenched his jaw. He’d promised to be there for her before, but time had had other plans. He knew that she must be remembering that conversation, from so many years ago.

 

“Yeah.” He said softly, squeezing her hand with both of his.

 

She nodded, hiccupping back more tears. Five was glad, he didn’t want to deal with anymore tears right now. His own throat was tight with emotions that he had never dealt with, either in the apocalypse or when he’d returned to finally see his family again.

 

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, though Five wasn’t sure how long. He continued to hold her hand, a strange and extended amount of physical contact for him. He was comforting her, but sitting here holding her hand made him feel grounded and solid for the first time in a long time. He was really here, his siblings were really here and safe, they were all really going to stop the apocalypse this time. He was sure of it.

 

After a while, Vanya shivered, bringing him out of his thoughts. It was freezing, but he had grown used to ignoring how hot or cold he felt during the apocalypse.

 

“We should go in.” He said. His voice sounded bored, like it was coming from far away from himself. If he was being honest, he wasn’t quite ready to move yet.

 

“Yeah,” Vanya answered.

 

She seemed okay, and Five was glad that he hadn’t made everything worse with his lack of skill in the emotions department. She pulled her hand from his, and got shakily up to her feet. He did the same, feeling exhausted for some reason.

 

“Hey, Five?”

 

“Hmm?” He was folding up his handkerchief, putting it back into his pocket.

 

She reached across the distance, and pulled him into a hug. He resisted the urge to jerk away. He wasn’t exactly a hug person, and Vanya knew that. Still, he put his arms around her, tentatively hugging her back, and pretended like he wasn’t happy about it.

 

“Thanks. For coming back to save all of us, for being here now, for everything. You’re a good brother.”

 

“Sure,” he answered, his throat thick with emotions again. He pulled away, and turned towards the exit –keeping his shoulders straight and coughing a little to relieve some of the discomfort that he was feeling.

 

Vanya let him. She didn’t typically push people too hard when it came to emotional stuff.

 

“I’m freezing.” She said instead. “Want some coffee or something?”

 

“God yes.” He answered, ready to step away from the heavy atmosphere of the observatory.

 

They said nothing as they walked out of the dilapidated building and made their way into the kitchen. Vanya made coffee and cut a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich in half, he nodded in appreciation, and they drank their coffee and ate in silence.

 

“So, I guess I’ll start training tomorrow?” She asked him, as she carried the dishes to the sink.

 

Five allowed himself a half smile. “Yeah, we’ll start tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! I love the friendship between Five and Vanya and feel like Five has a huge soft spot for her.
> 
> I was interested in what he said to the Handler, "I do owe a debt, but not to you." Was that generally about his family, or was it a specific instance that he was referencing?


End file.
